Present status of MgB2 wire manufacturing 5th December 20122012 – 40 employees today Columbus...
Transcript of Present status of MgB2 wire manufacturing 5th December 20122012 – 40 employees today Columbus...
Present status of MgB2 wire manufacturing
5th December 2012
Giovanni Grasso
MgB2 has opened a new frontier in the physical properties and application of SC
The limit of Tc in metallic superconductors was considered equal to 30 K
and this unexpected discovery of high Tc in this
simple binary intermetallic compound has produced a huge interest around the
world, with thousands of papers published on MgB2
MgB2
MgB2 BSCCO – 1G YBCO – 2G
Wire type
Round wire or tape with
Nickel-alloy sheath
Silver sheathed tape
Thin film on metallic substrate with biaxial
texture
Tc (K) 39 K 108 K 90 K
Current carrying capability at 20 K
≈ 1000 A ≈ 1000 A ≈ 1000 A
Superconducting splices
YES NO NOT YET
Low cost ( <6 €/m ) YES NO NOT YET
(not likely within 5 years)
Long length ( >6 Km ) YES NO NOT YET
(likely within 5 years)
Which HTS superconducting solutions are available today?
The Company
Columbus has been founded in 2003 as a start-up
originated from the Italian National Research Council (CNR)
• The actual plant is fully operational for MgB2
wire production and is completing scaling up
• MgB2 compound production is now also
fully implemented
• Wire unit length today up to 2- 4 Km in a
single piece –length
• It is scaled up to 20 Km together with the full
scale up of the plant with capacity exceeding
4’000 Km/year
• Columbus MgB2 production for MRI has
exceeded 700 Km of fully tested and
qualified wires
• Total plant area 4’400 m2 after being
increased by further 1’000 m2 in September
2012 – 40 employees today
Columbus Superconductors plant
•39 new machines •15 existing machines will be still used over 21, •10 main upgrades to the technical infrastructures •1 new 2 floors buildiing •2.280m2 of covered workshop area •20 direct production units
• SEM with EDX
• very fast XRD
• Laser particle size analyzer
• Eddy currents defect detector
• Optical stereomicroscopes
• Laser wire size and shape online monitor
• Industrial video cameras for surface defect detection
• Additional cryo-free critical current testing system under construction
Quality control techniques
+
B
Mg
99% pure
Mixing Synthesis
700-1000°C in Ar
MgB2
Planetary
Ball Milling
95-97 % pure
Drawing Cold rolling Sintering
900-1000°C in Ar Tube Filling
Chemical Phase
Metallurgical Phase
Production Process
Wire Design : State-of-the -Art
There are 3 different wire formats: Round, Flat and Sandwich
Flat tape
•The flat tape architecture has been the work-horse for Columbus in the past
years and it has been the preliminary choice of our customers to start to
understand the potential of our material
• Flat tape conductor is mainly used in small bore magnets and low current
devices
Sandwich conductor
•This architecture is our solution for future magnet and winding applications
• It allows the maximum flexibility in the control of the wire absolute
performance and in the amount of Cu stabilization
•Being the Cu stabilizer not subjected to the thermomechanical treatment of
the MgB2 conductor, it’s soldered to it in its optimal mechanical and
electrical condition
Round wire
•MgB2 is currently the only no low-Tc superconductor that can be easily
produced in round wire shape with significant transport properties,
multifilamentary structure and excellent reliability over long lengths
•Round wires present several advantages, particularly concerning easier
solenoid and more complex magnet winding, and absence of anisotropy
Material Area
(mm2)
%
MgB2
0.16 16.5
Nb 0.15 14.6
Ni 0.16 15.5
Monel 0.53 53.4
Copper
Total 1.00 100
Diameter 1.13
Wire Design : Round Wire
Outer sheath of Monel 400 surrounding 37 MgB2 filaments protected by a Nb barrier and
embedded in a Ni 201 alloy matrix
The unit piece is already 3,5 Km.
The scaling up will lead to a 20 Km unit piece length
The MRI system MROpen
First commercial systems
already installed and fully
operational in hospitals and
private clinics in EU and North
America
• Unique fully dry superconducting MRI system currently on the market
• Based on Columbus MgB2 technology
• Unique superconducting open-sky MRI system currently on the market
• Very attractive because of its features (scanning with/no load, children, no claustrophobia, very easy
installation and running, ..)
• More than a dozen systems produced so far
• Also highly suitable for remote installation because electricity is the only requirement to
setup/start/run the system – not suffering from scattered power outages because of large heat capacity
MROpen has been developed employing the flat tape architecture
Superconducting Generators • could offer several cost and reliability improvements over conventional wind
turbine drivetrains when scaled up to high capacity (5 MW and larger) and when used in direct drive systems: they do not require a gearbox
• less mass and less volume than conventional as well as PM generators, resulting in an overall reduction in turbine capital costs
• cost advantages produced by such weight savings are most likely to be realized initially in large turbines
• should increase drivetrain reliability by allowing a larger air gap tolerance between rotor and stator as compared to PM generators
• hold the potential of providing high torques in a smaller size and with smaller weight than conventional technologies
10 MW power:
150 tons MgB2 generator
300 tons for PM and
500+ tons for conventional
Advantages of a superconducting generator
• MgB2 development and production is progressing well
• We believe that MgB2 cables will represent a very
important development for our products
• Dedicated MRI projects are ongoing in several
countries
• Total body MRI companies are also starting the
implementation of MgB2 in future commercial systems
in order to move to cryogenic-free systems
• New industrial products and research related
applications will further help to boost MgB2
production
Summary
Thanks for your attention